


Big Shot

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Alcohol, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:06:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al gets drunk at a party thrown in his honor, and says a few surprising things he can't remember. Ziggy is only too happy to give him an instant replay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Shot

**Author's Note:**

> _But now you just don't remember all the things you said_
> 
> _And you're not sure that you wanna know_
> 
> _I'll give you one hint honey you sure did put on a show -- **BILLY JOEL**_

Al woke up and fervently wished he hadn't.

Groggily, he kept moving, trying position after position (adjusted by tiny increments) in search of comfort. Each time he almost succeeded, but then a wave of throbbing pain in his head or roiling nausea in his gut would prod him with a sharpened stick, hissing at him that there was no rest for the wicked.

He realized that this was true, as his stomach sent an emphatic exclamation point to his brain: he was out of the bed before the pain of moving his head around could register, and spent several long horrible minutes on his knees in the head puking his guts out. 

Trembling at the sink, he splashed water into his mouth, squinting blearily at the ghastly haggard reflection presented him by the mirror. *Where the hell have you been?*

His reflection didn't seem to know either.

A thunderous banging noise suddenly commenced, and the act of cringing brought on such a peal of pain that Al felt certain he was going to fall down where he stood. 

It was in fact a soft knock on his door, and turned out to be Verbena.

She came in in blessed silence, smiling at him with her customary indecipherably calm exterior, but he was certain she was scrutinizing him carefully, and it made his head ache more.

She uncapped a syringe and raised an eyebrow.

"Thank God," said Al, his voice grating in his throat like powdered glass. "It's Dr. Kevorkian and he makes house calls."

The sound of his own voice made him stagger. When she twirled her index finger at him, signing that he should turn around, he sighed and obeyed her.

The needle as it plowed into his butt was a searing high-note of agony, but he knew that the thiamine, once it kicked in, should make even him feel human.

"You never bailed me out of a hangover before," he muttered, when she was done sticking him. 

"That was when you used to get drunk on purpose," she said, very very quietly. -- It was a holy miracle. His head was already starting to feel just a tiny bit better. -- "Last night was more of a..." -- why did he think the next word was supposed to be, *disaster*? -- "conspiracy of circumstances."

"Last night?" 

"You need breakfast," said Verbena, "and a shower. I'll tell you what...you turn the shower on as hot as you can stand it and clean up, and I'll bring you back something from the cafeteria. Deal?"

"...Thanks," said Al, frowning in puzzlement, but that hot shower sounded so good, and she nodded and left.

AHHHHHHHH.

His brain was starting to stir in there. The steam seemed to loosen some of the cobwebs fogging his skull, and the first fully formed, coherent thought of the day was, *Why the hell is Verbena acting like my babysitter?*

The second was, *What conspiracy of circumstances?* 

He lathered the soap thoughtfully, running on autopilot as he mulled.

Last night. Last night. Now that he could wade through the aftereffects of what must have been a river of alcohol, he guessed he could recall bits and pieces. They were celebrating. Everyone was happy. And everyone was slapping him on the back.

*Still got it, Admiral!* someone said, and other people grinned and lifted their glasses in yet another toast.

Right. He'd come back from D.C. yesterday, got in at about twenty-hundred, and the news had apparently preceded him -- Quantum Leap was plugged in for another *two years*. A frigging miracle. His last three forays into Sharktown had only scraped PQL by for six months apiece. 

So naturally it was kinda like Christmas. Everyone from low to high had been on edge, wondering what was going to happen to their jobs. 

Some of them even gave some kind of a shit whether Sam lived or died.

He shut off the hot water with a savage twist, braced for the blast of heart-attack COLD. The agonized yelp escaped him anyway as it hit and squeezed him in a giant icy hand. Then he turned the cold off too and stood there a moment, dripping and shivering. 

All right, at least he was awake and alive. Now if he could only get a handle on last night!

He'd just managed to get some pants on when the knock came again -- Verbena. Al opened the door. He flinched back from the aromatic eggy steam rising from the plate she bore, but reached eagerly for the mug of black coffee. She relinquished it, eyeing him critically.

"You look better," she said in her honey-smooth voice. "Though you really ought to avoid wearing white when you're hung over...makes you look bilious."

She came in, ducking under his outstreched arm, and set the food down on his little table by the TV.

He ignored Verbena's fashion advice and chose a shirt and tie. The plain fact was that white was the least irritating to his eyes on mornings like these, and he didn't give a wet slap how he looked this morning, though he knew better than to say so.

She'd really worry about him then.

At her urging he sat down at the table and picked up a fork, hoping that the first bite would lead to some desire for another.

That's when he noticed his Annapolis ring was missing.

He stared at his hands, then glanced up at Bena. She had seated herself across from him, and when he looked up she calmly held out her hand. There it was, glittering in her palm. He reached out dumbly for it, settled it back on to its accustomed finger. Her face never altered expression. It drove him nuts. She did it to torment him, he knew it.

He plowed into the scrambled eggs. He had a nasty feeling that he really didn't want to know. But sooner or later he was going to have to find out, and he was pretty sure he couldn't feel worse than he did right now. 

"Where was it?" He shoved in some toast. 

"The punch bowl," said Verbena.

"It fell in the punch bowl?" he demanded, incredulously. No way. It fit his finger perfectly.

"You threw it in the punch bowl," she said.

He stared at her, a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. 

"You don't remember?"

He shook his head.

Her expression changed for the first time. It softened into something disgustingly like pity. He ignored it and finished his breakfast. The nourishment was like spring rain on dry plants, but the food itself sat in a gigantic knot in his belly. 

Obviously he'd done something worthy of his plebe years...he hadn't blacked out since the year he met Sam.

"What can you remember?" she said.

Al sighed, sitting back from the denuded plate and taking a swallow of the coffee. "Not a lot. Getting in, wondering where everybody was...then the big surprise." He grinned despite himself. He had never had a surprise party thrown for him in his life. And this wasn't for something you had no control over, like a birthday -- it had been for something he'd *accomplished*, and it had given him enough warm fuzzy feelings for a battalion of Barneys. 

Shit, they'd made him feel like a hero. A brimming glass of champagne had been pressed into his hand before he could put his briefcase down, and toast after toast, each sillier than the last, made the hastily-decorated cafeteria ring with laughter and applause.

"I should've eaten something," he said now to Verbena, "I hadn't had anything since that disgusting lunch at the White House. Can you believe *five* courses and *nothing* that didn't have meat in it? I ended up havin' rolls and salad. But at the party...seems like I couldn't make it to the food table. Everybody wanted to talk to me..."

"That's right," said Verbena. "And when you finally made it to the food, there was nothing left but chicken wings."

"...I don't remember that."

She got up. "Most of the people who were there won't remember much, either," she said, "it was a hell of a party. But I think you might want to get Ziggy to show you the securicam logs."

And she left.

Oh, jeezus. Well, however bad it'd been, he'd better know now how much damage control he'd need.

He paused at the mirror as he adjusted his cuffs. No, he really didn't look that bad: he certainly looked better than he felt. His eyes looked hollow, and his color was a little off, though that was somewhat disguised by the blinding whiteness of the supple silk shirt. He tugged the brim of his hat so that it canted *just so* to the left. It took some emphasis off the grim set of his mouth.

In Asia, white is for funerals.

He left for his office.

He saw Tina as he crossed the central hub of corridors on level two. She appeared to be on her way home -- he dimly remembered the little banana-yellow number with the flapper fringe from last night, and she was carrying the matching shoes and yawning wincingly.

"Heya, doll," Al murmured to her as he drew up close. "Rough night?"

"Hoooo," she grinned at him, swaying, clutching at her forehead with her free hand. "I hope it was *fun* at least. I don't remember much," she confided.

"Yeah, well," he grinned at her knowingly, his relief making him silly, "bananas are happiest in a bunch, chiquita." He tipped his hat at her with a friendly leer and sauntered on. She giggled and went her own way, rubbing helplessly at her pounding head.

Well. He hadn't alienated Tina, at any rate....nor, from what he could tell, any of the engineers or admin personnel he encountered. Everyone was sallow and mostly incoherent, and some people were noticeably absent. 

Verbena was right. It *had* been one hell of a party. 

He procured a big mug of fresh coffee and holed up in his office. He had some interviews with prospective programmers and analysts after lunch, and Sam was due to land sometime this evening, but he didn't have to talk to anyone for awhile. Well, except...

"Morning, babe," he called out.

"Morning, honey," purred Ziggy. "Did you sleep well?"

"Guess so," said Al, shoving most of his face into the coffee mug. 

"I'm curious about some things you said last night," Ziggy said lightly.

"Matter of fact, Zig...so am I. Would you show me the cam logs from the party, honey?"

"Sure, sailor boy," she cooed. The terminal screen on his desk lit up. He had to wait a minute or two while it booted up, chittered to itself, popped a pile of icons onto the screen and demanded a password. When Al had entered the code to its satisfaction, it played a random clip from *Buckaroo Banzai*. 

"Laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy!" shouted John Lithgow from the tinny monitor speaker.

"Tinkertoy," sneered Ziggy, sotto voce, in her rich, breathy full-stereo glory. "...Here you are, Admiral. March 31, twenty-fifty-two."

"Go," said Al, and poured more coffee down.

Looked like he hadn't arrived yet. Everyone was making a half-hearted attempt to stay quiet, though it seemed that a number of the people had started their part of the festivities early: Henry Liu had his shoes off, Hannah and Sammy-Jo were desperately trying to stop giggling, and Gooshie looked flushed, though that could have been from the excitement.

Al murmured to Ziggy to toggle between the three cafeteria pickups, checking out the spread and the turnout.

Someone had dragged out the Christmas lights and rather sloppily tacked them up -- they hung in uneven loops from the cafeteria ceiling. And there -- oh, *look* at all that food! Apparently someone had even gone to the trouble of running out to Alomogordo and getting his favorite, a gorgeous platter of those stuffed mushrooms with the green onions...yeah, he could see the carambola garnish in the center of the platter, it was definitely from Mama Gale's. How come he never got any of that? Even hung over all to hell the very thought of those mushrooms made his mouth water.

Ziggy's voice came out of the monitor speaker now, weirdly thin-sounding on the recording -- like a real person in the room, almost. "The Admiral is about to arrive," she told the room at large, and then the door opened, and Al saw himself, looking so damn tired (and *short!*) in his rumpled dress whites.

"SURPRISE!" shouted a roomful of happy PQL staff. Yesterday's Al froze in the doorway, face weirdly blank in a split second of nonreaction. 

Then his face thawed out, suddenly: a slight jaw-drop as he took in the hastily-decorated room, the happy faces, the bottle of champagne being showily and wastefully popped by Gooshie. And a gigantic grin seemed to wrench itself up from the center of his chest, riding high enough to light his eyes up. Today's Al cocked his head to the side, bemused at the sight of his own face so transformed by a smile that it seemed to belong to someone else.

Looked damn good, that's all he could say. Maybe he'd get a chance to smile that smile for Sam sometime.

Friendly hands reached out now to yesterday's Al, drawing him into the room, patting him on the back or (Tina and Hannah) rumpling his hair. Ah, so it was *Gooshie* who pressed the first glass of bubbly upon him and proposed the first toast. (Al reminded himself grimly to return the favor sometime.)

"To the Admiral!" Gooshie shouted, straining to be heard over the clamor. His face was red with the effort, or with alcohol, or both. Then, clearly, he couldn't think of anything witty or appropriate to say, so he started singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" in a voice whose tunelessness was rivalled only by its enthusiasm. Immediately everyone joined in, serenading him with glasses held aloft.

"...which nobody can deny," supplied Ziggy after everyone had finished, in her breathiest Marilyn voice, and the whole room howled and applauded in approval.

Al had her toggle to another cam in time to see himself grin foolishly and drain off his glass at one draft. 

Beginning of the end, really. He could see the alcohol hit him hard, could practically see the decision form to get something to eat. 

He'd set down his briefcase and gone two steps when Henry stopped him, beaming, clutching a bottle, and filled up Al's glass. The conversation was almost impossible to hear, but in fact Al today could still remember most of this part. Anyway none of the conversations were terribly important to remember word for word -- they were all pretty much the same: happy congratulations and good-natured ribbing, progressively less coherent. Each time Al would smile and crack a joke, bob his head and drink along when he was toasted. Two steps toward the food, and it would all begin again. 

Hours passed this way. Al had Ziggy fast-forward through some of the logs. Just watching himself and everyone else tip up the glasses again and again, throats working as the champagne was poured down, made his head throb accusingly.

Though it couldn't be disputed that a good time was being had by all. Especially him! 

"Okay, play here," he said to Ziggy as the greatly-accelerated Macarena seemed to be winding down. He didn't remember dancing at all, but there he was in the thick of it, dancing up a storm with anyone and everyone. The song ended and he panted for breath. Someone handed him another glass: he drained it.

Eventually, he reached what was left of the food.

He could see his lip curl at the only thing left: chicken wings glistening with grease, and bleu cheese dressing that had plainly been sitting out too long. Someone must have cleared away empty plates and platters, because the table was mostly denuded but for crumbs and spills. Down at the end was the punch bowl, still mostly full. He had no idea what had been in it. Maybe it was something for the non-drinkers, though there didn't actually seem to be any of those in evidence. No, wait, there was Verbena ladling herself a cup of it now. Must be juice or something, then. 

Then Al's eye was drawn by something he could only half-glimpse in the corner of the screen. He punched up another view.

Yes, that's what he thought he saw, a couple off in the corner locked in a torrid kiss. Yeah, it wasn't a party until somebody almost got laid in public! He grinned. Was that Hannah? Yes, that was Hannah all right, he recognized that ornament she always wore in her dark hair, and -- wait -- WHAT?

Hannah was in the corner ...with...*Sammy-Jo*?! 

Hoboy...

Yes. That *was* Sammy-Jo. Hannah was running her hands through her companion's hair, and Al could clearly see the lock of stark white appear amongst the amber-waves-of-grain blond, threading like silk through Hannah's clever little fingers.

Something about that detail made Al very uncomfortable suddenly, and he switched the view again just in time to see himself clamber up on the table and roar for everyone's attention, swaying like a metronome.

"I want to propose a toast!" 

[Al marveled, in a sickly distant way, at how clearly he had enunciated every word, not slurring even though his eyes and the sway of his body gave him away. ]

"Yeah. I got a toast, listen up down there." This last was said just a little sharply in the direction of Hannah and Sammy-Jo. The two women both turned to pay attention, but they did not separate. Hannah wore an angelic expression on her usually crafty little face, and Sammy-Jo --

"Halt! Cam two, enhance."

*Sammy-Jo lifted her gaze, smirking a little, hazel eyes crinkling and warm with life, that full lower lip bruised with kisses --*

Al clamped his hand over his eyes, pretended to rub his aching head, but the image chased itself in circles inside his skull and wouldn't let him look away. And it wasn't Sammy-Jo. 

*Get a fucking grip..._Admiral._* He frowned, glanced at his ring, and took a deep breath.

"Okay, Zig. Resume, cam three."

"Everybody's been toastin' the hell out of me tonight," last night's Al went on, comfortable with the attention of everyone. Someone laughed. "Yeah -- an' now I'm toasted! Who scarfed all the mushrooms, anyway?? Look at this, not one left." He stooped down to the empty platter and picked up a piece of the garnish -- a thick star-shaped slice of tangy carambola. He munched on it thoughtfully, washed it down with champagne, and resumed. 

"Where was I? Oh, the toast!

"Yeah, everybody's makin' a big deal outta me tonight, but I want you all to remember why we're all really here...to Sam Beckett," he lifted his glass, found it empty. Someone hastily filled it for him, slopping it over the side of the glass. "Yeah. Thanks. To Sam Beckett! Yeah. The love 'a my life." He laughed and tipped up the glass, and most of everyone else did the same.

But he could see Verbena's fucking ears prick up the moment the words were outta his mouth.

Al's heart sank as he saw himself twisting at his ring and jerking it over the knuckle. He nearly spilled his glass in the process, but with the slow majestic agility of the very drunk he kept it upright...barely...as the ring came off.

"See this? Mark of pride, yeah? Treasured possession. Well, I don't need it." He flipped it in a perfect arc, the flat surface glinting tiny reflected Christmas lights from the ceiling, and then *ploop*, into the punch bowl it went. 

He hadn't wanted to believe Verbena, but here was the evidence.

"I did that...I did that on purpose. It's a symbol. You all get that? There's *nothin'*, there's *nothin'* I wouldn't do for that man. To get him home. I'd give up bein' an admiral, the Navy itself, give up bein' anything. I'd give him my *heart* if he needed it."

Now, Al knew what he'd meant by *that*. He meant, heart, as in the organ, the thing you only have one of and really need in order to go on living. It was an overblown emotional organ-donor half-joke thing. For Christ's sake. But even knowing what he'd meant at the time, he heard the other part too anyway. Just because of the words. No matter how drunk he was, he still chose the words.

"So let's get him back, people. Let's try not to need two more whole years."

He saw himself sagging even as he sagged now, the thought of two more whole years of anxiety and loneliness and denial, two more whole years of being the ghost in Sam's machine...

Two more whole years of Sam still-not-home.

Then he looked up and found that there were a couple of people staring at him from the floor, drunk but alert enough to register what he said, yet not sober enough to be sure what they were hearing. And Verbena. Verbena who was carefully not looking at him -- so that he would keep rambling, he knew this game -- but listening so intently she was like a gigantic judging ear in a dress.

And Hannah and Sammy-Jo were at it again already.

Al-on-the-table looked around ponderously, registering the bewilderment of the few who still had anything like a good grasp of English, and frowned, visibly running his mind over the last few sentences.

Then he glanced up at the clock on the cafeteria wall. Al-in-his-office looked at the time display at the bottom of the monitor screen. 0114:29. Quarter after one a.m.

Al saw the connection form slowly on his face. Saw the brief dark flicker for the other associations he had with that date. He raised the glass one more time, smiling crookedly. "April fool!" he shouted, and jumped down off the table into the raggedly cheering crowd. 

It took Al a few minutes of scanning around the various angles of the room to realize that he had actually left the party at this point, not simply been reabsorbed into the throng. He had *fled*, which was to his mind more damning than the ring in the punchbowl. He sighed, feeling unutterably weary and exposed.

Mad March hare to April fool in one easy evening. Fucking fantastic.

"Admiral," said Ziggy sweetly.

"Mm hmm."

"I can perceive seventy-six hundred levels of variation of context ambiguity in spoken English, and I've learned to interpret them with exponentially increasing accuracy."

"Uh huh..."

"But I was unable to decide what you meant when you said you would give Dr. Beckett your heart."

A pause.

"Sorry, honey."

"You won't answer me?"

"I can't answer you. I don't know."

"Party pooper," said Ziggy, in a sulky tone.

Al put his head down on the desk. 

He couldn't give Sam his heart. Sam already had his heart.

Sam *was* his heart.

After a minute or two he picked his head up off the desk and breathed deeply, calming down and slipping almost without effort into admiral-mode, that cooler place of command where he could be most useful, with fear and desire held firmly aside until there was time for it. Prioritizing reaction and response. Keeping what was most important firmly in front of the mind's eye. 

Keeping last night's revelations in the past. He got to work.

***

He glanced up at the clock. One-fourteen, he saw with start, and felt a little chill go up his back. -- But he had no time for that now. He had some interviews to conduct, and two of the scientists on the list had had some extremely promising ideas which Ziggy projected could be applied toward retrieval. The odds weren't much over sixty percent, yeah, but that was better news than he'd had in a long time. Hope surged through him again, and he cherished it for a moment before regretfully consigning it along with the other feelings that had to wait. 

As it happened, they didn't have to wait very long.


End file.
